8GB Compact Flash Card unveiled

[Ken Tanaka]

(Roger: I think you're actually addressing Jeff, eh? <g> )

[Roger Golub]

Well, yes, sorry. Everyone looks the same on the web....

[Jeff Donald]

I use several different recovery programs with mixed results, but Photorescue and Image Rescue seem to offer the best results. Students do all kinds of things to their cards (all the things you mentioned and more) but the most common response is, "they just disappeared." I don't know if they don't want to admit to causing the error or if indeed the card just hiccuped and wiped the images off.

[Roger Golub]

Do you suggest that they reformat their cards after each use? I'm especially curious since this problem comes up with some frequency with people I know with differing cameras and cards.

I've always done that (kinda like formatting floppy disks before using them - and I'm old enough to recall that was the accepted way of minimizing floppy disk failures).

Since the CF cards use FAT or some variant thereof, they're vulnerable to index corruption. Formatting tends to fix that and the card should work fine (the next time) as opposed to having the card routinely fail.

The other "usual suspect" with these problems according to various threads on various boards is the USB card reader and flaky USB cables.

Of course, UMMV.....

[Jeff Donald]

I recommend formatting the card after each use and to not format in the computer. The vast majority of the incidents happen while the card is in camera. I would also say the majority of the failures happen during the review of images, rather than in the camera mode.

[Don Parrish]

Just ordered the Sandisk Ultra II 512, got the 28 - 135 IS a month ago, tax time should be the 20d. I hope this CF serves me well as I am stretching to get this camera and I am having to do it in pieces :)

Would someone splain to me what the "secure" feature is on cards and cameras.
Thanks

[Gints Klimanis]

Flash devices do have a limited number of read/write cycles, but they're in the 10,000 to 100,000 range. I would suspect that the card contacts would fail well before that. The # of insertions depends on the quality of the connectors of the cards and those on the camera. The CF housing offers little protection from static shock and dirt on the contacts, so be sure to handle the cards with care even though they are solid state.

As for the limited # of write cycles, I'm hoping that camera manufacturers wise up and allow you to stick the file table in a random section. I bet that this is the part of the device that fails because the CF device is accessing the same parts of the file system for images written all over the card. So, I would even go so far as to say that you can make your CF card last longer by allowing it to fill up. This almost sounds like advice for rechargeable batteries. Chuckle.

[Jeff Donald]

I bet that this is the part of the device that fails because the CF device is accessing the same parts of the file system for images written all over the card.

I thought that was changed, but maybe I'm remembering that wrong.

[Roger Golub]

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Donald : The vast majority of the incidents happen while the card is in camera. I would also say the majority of the failures happen during the review of images, rather than in the camera mode. -->>>

That's rather interesting - not sure what to make of it. Sounds like corruption or timing issues in the camera -> CF circuitry. Maybe my good luck comes from not viewing the images in the camera (because I can't seem to see the tiny little 1.8" screen with my 50'ish eyes).

Guess something good comes from getting older....

[Roger Golub]

<<<-- Originally posted by Gints Klimanis : Flash devices do have a limited number of read/write cycles, but they're in the 10,000 to 100,000 range. I would suspect that the card contacts would fail well before that. -->>>

Actually, it's 100,000 to 1,000,000 according to Rob Gailbreth's excellent site on Compact Flash cards (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007)

Which is a couple of years of doing 100 read/writes per day. And as he points out, the card doesn't fail, just accumulates bad sectors which the operating system of the camera should work around.

I agree with the contacts being a likely choke point - they're not designed all that robustly. Although in fairness, I haven't had even my older cards act loose or electrically flaky.

[David Bermejo]

And I thought a 512 MB SD card was big. Now they go up to 2.0 GB for such a little card. Incredible

[Jeff Donald]

It is thought the SD will become the standard over the next few years. CF has a fairly low maximum theoretical limit as to total capacity and R/W speed as compared to the limits for SD cards.

[Roger Golub]

Ah, but CF is here, big and CHEAP! Also, most current digital cameras don't write fast enough to take advantage of even the new generation CV cards.

My big problem with the SD cards is that they're too small. I can barely keep track of the CF's.

I would like to see my next digital camera (the mythical Nikon "D200") come out with a removable media widget - plug an adapter in and use CF, SD or whatever neat format that rolls down the pike. It's certainly possible to do - my laptop has little slots for everything. My old Olympus E10 had both slots for a CF card and some other format that I can't remember the name of. Didn't take up too much space.

[Tommy Haupfear]

At least Sony finally started making cams that support both their proprietary Memory Stick and good ol' Compact Flash (DSC-F828 aka Purple Fringer).

Of course anything is better than the old Mavicas that used 1.44mb floppies for storage. Panasonic tried to up the ante with a cam that supported LS-120 discs but by then it was too late for the magnetic media (see also Zip 100MB/250MB).

[Jeff Donald]

Roger, I don't know that consumers are going to have a lot to say about it. There are numerous factors in favor of SD cards. Among the more notable are faster read/write times, lower power consumption, longer life expectancy, and smaller size.